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the nuclear option: when officer safety is job no. 1, citizens die
Breitbart ^ | 31 Aug 2014, | CHARLES HURT

Posted on 08/31/2014 9:32:59 PM PDT by Rabin

St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson, officer safety is the number one issue, after two of his officers fired nine rounds into a shoplifter.

Is a police officer's number one job really to protect himself and his partner? Really?

(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...


TOPICS: Heated Discussion
KEYWORDS: donutwatch; dotson; nuclearoption; police
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To: Molon Labbie; puppypusher; INVAR
The pistol has always been the appropriate response to a knife attack.

If I have a gun, and you have a knife, and I pull up in a vehicle to "confront" you, I'll put the vehicle between you and me, not jump out and "hold my ground".

If you want to come around the vehicle with your knife, THEN I'll shoot you.

The "Pretend Sojer Code" prevents the police from using their heads and backing up in a situation like this.

It's interesting to watch the body language of the backup police when dealing with the onlooking peasantry.

21 posted on 09/01/2014 9:39:59 AM PDT by kiryandil (making the jests that some FReepers aren't allowed to...)
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To: kiryandil

Police officers are not required to retreat in the face of threats and person running forward can do it alot faster than you can backup.

It’s the citizen committing the act that is required to submit to the FIRST command of the officer to desist. Those officers gave multiple verbal commands to the decedent who decided the outcome.


22 posted on 09/01/2014 10:11:43 AM PDT by Molon Labbie (Prep. Now. Live Healthy, take your Shooting Iron daily.)
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To: Molon Labbie
Police officers are not required to retreat in the face of threats

This is a stupid attitude. And it's just that - an attitude.

person running forward can do it alot faster than you can backup.

Why, certainly - if I entered the situation with my brain shut off (see my comment above).

It’s the citizen committing the act that is required to submit to the FIRST command of the officer to desist. Those officers gave multiple verbal commands to the decedent who decided the outcome.

What happens if multiple officers give multiple conflicting commands, as happened in the case of Erik Scott, and others?

Oh, that's right - the peasant dies. /sarcasm.

23 posted on 09/01/2014 10:22:35 AM PDT by kiryandil (making the jests that some FReepers aren't allowed to...)
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To: kiryandil

Don’t get mad at me about it, I didn’t originally state it.

SCOTUS did. SCOTUS also recognized that hindsight is 20/20 and that the benchmark for judging whether an officer’s actions wered correct is based on what another reasonable officer with similiar amount of training and experience would do in a similiar situation. Not what YOU would do, but what an officer would do.

The police also keep their own counsel on how to handle use of force situations which mean their instructors are almost exclusively police officers who have been to the mountain and seen the bear. This is done by design since any use of force judicial proceedings will most certainly attack the training of the officer. It would be embarrasing for someone to admit they had never themselves been in an arrest situation that resulted in force. Expert use of force witnesses are also almost exclusively former or active police officers.


24 posted on 09/01/2014 10:40:42 AM PDT by Molon Labbie (Prep. Now. Live Healthy, take your Shooting Iron daily.)
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To: Molon Labbie
How long have you been instructor in both of these disciplines?

28 years. 2nd Dan - Taekwondo. Just about any Martial discipline teaches defense against a knife.

Two officers, one assailant. Mace and batons combined with training - the perp would be injured and arrested. Not dead.

But if the policy is shoot to kill whenever a man with a badge feels 'threatened' - dogs and a lot of innocent people are going to be killed.

25 posted on 09/01/2014 10:58:37 AM PDT by INVAR ("Fart for liberty, fart for freedom and fart proudly!" - Benjamin Franklin)
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To: INVAR

INVAR, that’s nice congratulations.

Ever heard of Dan Inosanto, of course you have.

Master Inosanto taught police officers that if you ever get into a conflict with someone with a knife, you WILL get cut and you had better shoot them. Further, he said if you ever confront someone that appears to be a practitioner, you better seriously consider shooting them too.

Further, police academies and agencies have only some much time to devote to self defense and certainly not 28 years to become proficient. The have to work with simple striking and joint lock techniques that don’t require months and months of practice to master. For example, punching a suspect in the face is considered a red zone strike since there is the high likelyhood of serious physical injury or even death in some cases. The use of force matrix does not strictly forbid it but allows it if an officer is assaulted in a similiar fashion.

Again, nothing against your art, but the police use of force experts, many of whom are practitioners, have the real world experience, history and evidence to design techniques that work for police officers.


26 posted on 09/01/2014 11:13:16 AM PDT by Molon Labbie (Prep. Now. Live Healthy, take your Shooting Iron daily.)
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To: Nifster
It is a leftists dream to have the population not the trust the police because then chaos and anarchy are easy to foment. The left is doing all it can to stoke the flames.

The police largely only have themselves to blame. How many stories do we read now nearly daily of cops shooting family pets because the dog was barking at them - EVEN from within a fenced back yard belonging to another homeowner?

The near-constant stories of no-knock raids that kill or injure innocents?

The fact that in courtrooms, when contesting a cop, you will be told that your words and witness testimony is irrelevant because the cop's word trumps yours?

My family has been at the receiving end of corrupt cop brutality and a perverted Just-Us system - so they lost any respect I once had for them. The news of late just confirms that distrust.

I also never said one should ‘obey’ every order.

I was responding to the statement that justified the shooting because the perp "did not obey commands". If it is policy that a citizen will be shot if they do not follow police commands (dangerous for the medicated, elderly and schizophrenics) - then the fact is - we live in a police state, and cops are no better than the Gestapo or the NKVD were in those regimes.

You learned well from the left and the likes of Alex Jones.

I loathe Alex Jones as much as I do Ron Paul. What was it you were saying about putting words in the mouth and straw-arguments'??

27 posted on 09/01/2014 11:17:28 AM PDT by INVAR ("Fart for liberty, fart for freedom and fart proudly!" - Benjamin Franklin)
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To: Molon Labbie; INVAR
Master Inosanto taught police officers that if you ever get into a conflict with someone with a knife, you WILL get cut and you had better shoot them.

Guess Mistress Inosanto never heard of putting several tons of steel & rubber in betwixt you & your assailant.

So, he's wrong.

28 posted on 09/01/2014 11:35:04 AM PDT by kiryandil (making the jests that some FReepers aren't allowed to...)
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To: Molon Labbie; INVAR
Many of the police types on FR make it sound like a War Zone out there, with breathless posts of this sort.

Frankly, I'm not impressed, being as how I'm a pretty good shot, and I have acute situational awareness. Try it sometime.

29 posted on 09/01/2014 11:40:45 AM PDT by kiryandil (making the jests that some FReepers aren't allowed to...)
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To: Molon Labbie
Master Inosanto taught police officers that if you ever get into a conflict with someone with a knife, you WILL get cut and you had better shoot them. Further, he said if you ever confront someone that appears to be a practitioner, you better seriously consider shooting them too.

That's not ANY kind of "master" (Sabumnim) I would follow and learn from.

Our Instructors always emphasized AVOIDING a conflict; situational awareness and talking oneself out of combat if possible. Defense and disarming a knife-wielder is one of the key training disciplines taught in self-defense classes.

In fact, it is one of the main training focuses on women's self defense classes since rapists generally like to use those to force themselves on victims.

Further, police academies and agencies have only some much time to devote to self defense

Then they SHOULD NOT be police officers. Period.

One knife-wielding suspect, TWO officers, batons, mace, taser, rubber bullets or beanbag, a police cruiser - and we are really going lie to ourselves and say that the cops were in danger and had to kill the moron?

If we have arrived at the point where it is policy for cops to shoot-to-kill anytime they assert they 'feel threatened', then we are become like the regimes our grandparents fought against. We are no longer a free people. We are already subjugated.

but the police use of force experts, many of whom are practitioners, have the real world experience, history and evidence to design techniques that work for police officers.

Which apparently is become "empty your magazine into whomever makes you feel 'threatened'. That's a military mindset. Not the mindset our police officers should have in the midst of 'protecting and serving' a citizenry.

Which is why we read about myriad stories like this and the epidemic of shooting people's pets and innocents caught in the mindset of a military operation.

30 posted on 09/01/2014 11:56:03 AM PDT by INVAR ("Fart for liberty, fart for freedom and fart proudly!" - Benjamin Franklin)
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To: INVAR

Ok, tiger in the dojo but no police experience. Got it, thanks.


31 posted on 09/01/2014 4:29:19 PM PDT by Molon Labbie (Prep. Now. Live Healthy, take your Shooting Iron daily.)
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To: kiryandil

Daniel Inosanto was one of the purveyors of the what became the Tueller drill and showed in no uncertain terms how fast a motivated human being with a knife could close the distance and slice you to ribbons.

And once again, police officers are under no obligation to back away from threats.


32 posted on 09/01/2014 4:33:57 PM PDT by Molon Labbie (Prep. Now. Live Healthy, take your Shooting Iron daily.)
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To: Molon Labbie

That is as stupid as insisting that unless you were in combat on active duty, you have no right to an opinion regarding military policy.

Like I said before, cops have faced knife-wielding perps since I have been breathing, and in my fifty-plus years I do not recall that cops had a policy of emptying their guns into a suicidal or drug-induced imbecile like we see today.

I’m not comfortable living in a police state, even if you are.

One day it will be used against you- and shoot-to-kill orders you applauded today will be used on you tomorrow. That is what history teaches happens in police state regimes run by a central authority.


33 posted on 09/01/2014 4:49:49 PM PDT by INVAR ("Fart for liberty, fart for freedom and fart proudly!" - Benjamin Franklin)
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To: INVAR

“The near-constant stories ...” Considering how many times a day police in the US encounter citizens, I find it interesting that all we hear are the ‘horror’ stories. It is easy to find the bad cop, the over aggressive cop, the one that shouldn’t be on the force.....I don’t see stories about the police who are out there doing the hard jobs or even the community policing in the small towns.

“I was responding to the statement that justified the shooting because the perp “did not obey commands”” DO you really think that it is a wise idea to run at a police officer who is telling you to freeze while brandishing a weapon?? I can understand running away. I can understanding standing still. I don not understand running at a police officer with a weapon in my hand.

The fact that your family has been on “ the receiving end of corrupt cop brutality” is not typical of most people’s encounters with the police. Since you do not give specifics I will have to accept your description. Followed by “a perverted Just-Us system “ confounds me. But I will not ask because I don’t want to cause you pain.

The fact that you cannot separate what happened to your family and what is more generally true says you are still bitter and angry. Good luck with that

What I know is that I have seen police blamed for things (Michael Brown comes to mind) that are caused by someone beating an officer and then coming back for more.


34 posted on 09/01/2014 6:40:43 PM PDT by Nifster
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To: Molon Labbie; INVAR
And once again, police officers are under no obligation to back away from threats.

When this mindset gets used against them, it'll be like taking candy from a stupid baby.

35 posted on 09/01/2014 8:15:29 PM PDT by kiryandil (making the jests that some FReepers aren't allowed to...)
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To: Rabin; Alaska Wolf; DCBryan1; Slings and Arrows; Doomonyou; napscoordinator; Shimmer1; ...
JBT Ping list


36 posted on 09/01/2014 9:15:31 PM PDT by null and void (If Bill Clinton was the first black president, why isn't Barack Obama the first woman president?)
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To: null and void

Public safety is a sideline comsideration. The important thing is that the officers get home safe.


37 posted on 09/01/2014 9:33:38 PM PDT by TADSLOS (The Event Horizon has come and gone. Buckle up and hang on.)
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To: Rabin

If officer safety was the priority, we wouldn’t risk them in the first place.


38 posted on 09/03/2014 5:05:56 AM PDT by LevinFan
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To: Molon Labbie

” The police also keep their own counsel on
how to handle use of force situations
which mean their instructors are almost
exclusively police officers who have been
to the mountain and seen the bear.”

That is part of the problem. When an orginization is allowed to make their own rules, permissiveness abounds. It allowed the Dorner shooting mistakes, among a great many others, to go unpunished. That isn’t acceptable.
And regardless of what cops think, we will get tired of the nonsense they dish out. LE is out of control with violence. LE was comissioned to protect people from violent predators, not to be them.


39 posted on 09/03/2014 5:52:17 AM PDT by LevinFan
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To: null and void; Abathar; Abcdefg; Abram; Abundy; albertp; Alexander Rubin; Allosaurs_r_us; ...



Libertarian ping! Click here to get added or here to be removed or post a message here!

40 posted on 09/03/2014 2:17:35 PM PDT by bamahead (Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master. -- Sallust)
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